Baseball | Porters successful on field, and off

Lockport hosts event to raise funds for cancer victims

Lockport's baseball team could go 0-30 and some might consider this season a success.

No matter what happens on the field, there are going to be plenty of people who will be happy with what the Porters have been able to do off the season.

The Porters raised more than $3,000 in 2012 when they hosted a Make Your Mark Foundation Strike Out Cancer game in honor of Mark Staehely, an 18-year-year old who succumbed to pediatric cancer in 2006. In his final years, Staehley helped raise money and coaxed people to donate toys to young cancer patients.

This year, the Porters opened things up and the softball team brought in Downers Grove South and Peotone on April 13 to form an all-day event in which 11 games were played and a cookout was hosted. The Porter community helped net $7,624 according to coach Andy Satunas.

Oh, and the Porters won the main event game, stunning Minooka, 10-0, in five innings after scoring eight runs in the second inning.

Satunas' crew has been pretty successful on the field as well, opening the season with a 9-3 mark which included an eye-popping 16-5 victory over St. Laurence on April 6. St. Laurence was ranked fourth in the state by Prep Baseball Report at the time and the Porters were 24th. The two, three and four spots in the order of Jeff Duschene, Ted Snidanko and Derek Bangert banged out nine hits and drove in 13 runs in that game with Duschene going 5-for-5 with six RBI.

Through the first 12 games, Bangert was leading the Porters with 18 RBI to go with a .441 average with three homers. The Homer Glen resident is happy with the way things have gone for the team so far.

"We're off to a real good start," he said. "We had big goals coming into this season. We came off a good year last season so we thought we would be better this year. We dropped our first game to New Trier and played well after that. If was the first time we were outside all season and we lost to them in the bottom of the seventh but we came out and played good."

"We have a senior lineup day in and day out," he said. "All the seniors are real close and that gives us an advantage over other teams. We have a family atmosphere.''

Bangert, a catcher, is headed to Heartland Community College next year. Heartland is a traditional baseball power that was ranked No. 5 in the nation in the National Junior College Association poll in early April.

Snidanko, also from Homer Glen, was on a tear, hitting .379 with three homers and nine RBI. He has been on college recruiters' radar screens for a couple of years and his headed to Purdue.

"After my sophomore season they let me go to a football game and they stayed in contact with me," he said. "I got hurt last year and we lost contact. But they saw me over the summer [with the Orland Sparks] and we talked again."

Pitchers Evan Martens, Connor Ryan and Eric Duzan each opened the season 2-0 and Martens struck out 21 batters in 21 1/3 innings while Ryan fanned 17 in 10 1/3.